MasterCard Uses Social Media to Rebrand Its Mobile Wallet Through Real-Time Monitoring

MasterCard’s Conversation Suite tool allows it to monitor social media conversations in real-time in 43 different markets and 26 different languages.

Last year after launching its PayPass Wallet (now rebranded MasterPass) MasterCard discovered that consumers who had already adopted mobile payments solutions had much less affection for the wallet solution than those who had never used mobile payments before. The card company found that only 58% of early mobile payments adopters liked the product, compared to 76% of non-adopters. MasterCard found this out thanks to a social media monitoring tool called Conversation Suite that it developed with Prime Research, a marketing research organization, according to a story published earlier this week on clickz.com, a marketing news site.

The Conversation Suite allows MasterCard to monitor social media and blog posts, as well as traditional online media, and respond to those conversations, Marcy Cohen, vie president and senior business leader of MasterCard’s worldwide communications team, said in the story. MasterCard employees follow online posts about MasterCard on the Conversation Suite’s 40-foot LED screen at MasterCard’s headquarters, according to the report.

Conversation Suite has discovered that over the past six months 125,000 people have created unique posts or tweets about MasterCard, , according to Cohen. Those have in turn led to 520,000 social media conversations that could reach up to 1.3 billion people. Conversation Suite is able to monitor these conversations in 43 different markets and in 26 different languages in real-time, she added.

MasterCard rebranded its wallet solution at Mobile World Congress last February. It found out about the lack of enthusiasm about the product among mobile payments adopters heading into the event and quickly changed its marketing at the conference to address the concerns it found among those early adopters. “We quickly realized there was some confusion around what this product was going to be and how it would differ from Google Wallet. People were also concerned about safety and security,” MasterCard’s Cohen said in the story. The communications team at MasterCard created a FAQ for the product tailored to the questions being asked on social media and offered one-on-one briefings about the product to the most influential tweeters.

“We were really proactive in the conversation and dominated share-of-voice among all of our competitors, both in traditional and social media."” Cohen said.

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio